The stunning sculpts of Jose Manuel Linares Lopez

Spanish artist Jose Manuel Linares Lopez is a freelance modeller who’s work is stunningly clear and concise. Check out his inspiration for Banderlog Ville, Dan Seddon Tribute and Engine, and see his demoreel here…

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Jose Manuel Linares Lopez has quite a lot of experience in the CG field. He has been a Beta tester for Fryrender and Maxwell Render render engines, a 3D Studio Max teacher, an Advanced Modeling tutor for several animation academies etc. Now he works as a freelance modeller.

Here he tells us about creating his cool models:

“I work as an environment modeller for an animation studio in Spain. It took me a month to model and render the scene in my spare time, which is inspired by a piece of work by Russian artist, Artyom Vlaskin, called ‘Port’.

This is the orginal 2D image by Artyom Vlaskin called Port by Banderlog, that Jose used as a base for his 3D piece. You can find out more on CGHub: http://cghub.com/images/view/90652/

“I primarily used Softimage, but the mountains and stonewalls were sculptured with ZBrush and retopologised with UVLayout. For the main rendering I used 3ds Max and V-Ray.

“Although I have a significant amount of 3D experience – I was tester of Arion Render and MaxwellRender, render engines from RandomControl and Next Limit companies – I still found the hardest part of the project was getting the look of the village right. It was tricky to give it the right sense of atmosphere.”

Demoreel containing CG environments

“I started the blocking mesh with Softimage. Sculpting was done with ZBrush. I rendered it with 3ds Max and V-Ray as render engine.”

“It was a very quick sculpting exercise. It took me five days: 1 and a half days for each character.”

“It has been modelling with subdivision technique.”

“I am always looking for dynamic and full-of-personality references to translate into 3D. The real goal was not to lose what makes them incredible artworks.”

“I really enjoy doing these sculpts as they are a very good exercise to train the eye with proportions.”

“I always start with a very attractive design or concept. I analyse what aspects make the character unique and try to preserve it from the beginning to the end.”

“I build guidelines in Photoshop to stablish general aspects as size, proportions and load as blueprint into Softimage.”

“Then I start the initial blocking process with single shapes as boxes, spheres etc. Connecting every single part with subdivision to finish this process.”

“I build as many single objects as they let me work better in ZBrush as individual subtools. The most enjoyable step starts in ZBrush, again, the reference is here to make sure everything works properly.”

“In this point I can rebuild the mesh with Togopun or decimate to render in 3D Max and V-Ray.”

Become a ZBrush ninja, today!

Title: EngineSoftware: Softimage, 3ds Max, V-Ray

“This scene was created in my spare time and was inspired by ‘Justicialista Gran Sport 1954 – Perónicus Motoris Vehiculae’, which is part of the Universo Chatarra (Scrap Metal Universe) series by artist Alejandro Burdisio.

“All the modelling was created using Softimage and a polygon subdivision modelling technique. V-Ray and 3ds Max were used for the rendering, and the whole project took me three weeks to complete.

“I really enjoyed working on the engine as it took a lot of research to get it looking right – the original design only showed part of it behind the car.

“As an artist, I am inspired by seeing an image on paper and making it look as real as possible. That desire drives me forward and always encourages me to improve.”

‘Engine’ first featured in the Portfolio section of 3D Word issue 170.